Slashdot Mirror
Is the Xbox 360 Really Mom Friendly?
Alex writes "Just prior to the XBOX 360's launch last November, in an interview with Primotech, Peter Moore boldly declared that someday "your mom would be playing the XBOX 360." In a twenty-page feature, we today put his words to the test, with a thorough investigation of how mom-friendly the 360, and videogaming in general, has become. The bigger picture: Has gaming finally reached the massive mainstream market?"
Not enough soap opera games for that!
Where were you when the voynix came?
yeah all those xboxs games out there with mom friendly written all over it... like ncaa, nfl, nhl, then about a million car and fighting games
What would kids do to rebel if mom was playing their video games? Go back to playing board games? Go outside and set more fires? Mom HAS to hate video games, or they will lose their largest audience -- kids who want to have something to do that differentiates them from their parents.
stuff |
but I am.
My mom played NES while I slept many years ago. She loved Zelda.
I have a shitty sig!
From the article:
"I dont consider myself a very tech savvy person. Heck, I still have trouble navigating my email. Yet I had no trouble hooking up the XBOX 360. A perfunctory glance at the included documentation was needed to verify a few points, but other than that, its nearly fool-proof."
Hasn't this been true of just about every console in history? If anything, the 360 is far more complex than previous consoles because it relies on a network connection for much of its functionality, and thus one more wire and one more point of failure. The article goes on to describe how the games are reasonably accessable...
"I found the controls in most titles to be too esoteric for me and I was just uncomfortable sitting in one place, holding a controller in my warm, tense hands. But over the course of time, I came to relax with the controller and master several of the controls in the games I attempted to play."
Again, things have only risen in complexity since the days of the NES and prior (not a bad thing, of course). If anything has brought gaming to the masses, it's marketing - certainly not any change in ease of use.
We (my sister and I ) recently introduced her to the wonderful world of emulation....I get this phonecall from her one day because she can't figure out to play some strange platformer that my sister threw on there.....I made the comment about how I need to get her zelda or one of the other RPGs and she says "Yeah I am kind of interested in playing the warcraft game...." Go figure.
Interactive entertainment is where its at.
Maybe it's just me, but every commercial for an XBox 360 game ending in, "Rated M for Mature" might just be turning Mom off. I mean, I'm sure that deep-down she wants to go around disembowling alien creatures all day like Angela Landsbury, fly a spaceship like Mary Tyler Moore, and race in a demolition race like Dolly Parton, but she doesn't exactly advertise that fact. Methinks there might be just a smidge of a generation and gender barrier there.
</sarcasm>
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Larva tested, puppa approved..
what..
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
I'm not sure ... (Next page)
If the XBox ... (Next page)
[obscured by google ads] (Next page)
Mom friendly. (Next page)
Ok, the article had pretty pictures and all that snazzy magazine feel, but why must I click click through twenty, ad-filled, pages to read all of your poorly formatted content. On top of that, for several of the pages my Firefox browser rendered the ads in front of the article text. If there is anything more annoying then having to needlessly click through several pages to read your content it's not being able to read the content once I get to the page because your ads are obscuring it.
0*0
00*
***
Didn't the DS already pass every single test to do with the older generation gaming? We've never seen a console sell to mothers more than kids before but the DS has single handedly got thousands of mothers playing Nintendogs, brain age and whatever other games they picked up.
Using the 360 to judge if the mass market is into the new gaming era is like using a people carrier to judge if people like fast cars. It makes no sense when we have something with a very clear cut answers right infront of us.
I like muppets.
She plays games on her Sega Master System every night, and doesn't want to get some expensive, confusing new thing with all those extra buttons.
By the way, does anyone know where I can find replacement controllers for a Sega Master System?
Mother I'd Like to Frag?
This guy's the limit!
I think that most casual gamers want easy to play, less complicated games like tetris and bejeweled rather then Madden and Quake. I don't see these kinds of games on the Xbox360. This of course of assuming that most mothers are at most casual gamers.
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
I was talking to a co-worker at lunch about the XBOX 360 that I recently purchases and she was telling me how her parents (in their mind-40's) played a lot of Halo and Halo 2 on the original XBOX. In fact, the XBOX was theirs, not the kids. She said she would come home from school and her mom would be playing Halo. Now, I realize that (and I'm paraphrasing a sig I recently read) the plural of anecdote is not data but clearly demonstrates that the original XBOX had the potential to be mom friendly.
Several magazine-like sites have a print-friendly version available only to credit card holders. Ars is one.
I'm sorry, I thought that the Wii was supposed to be the console for moms (and dads, and grandparents). It's a bit of a stretch to think that the same controller and button-combos that make hardcore gamers happy can also make a soccer-mom happy. I agree with Nintendo that the best approach is to rethink the interface, rethink the interactions, and re-engineer things to win over non-gamers. They've done OK in winning over new gamers with the DS interface and Brain Games. With the Wii, I think they can repeat their success, if they stay sharp and deliver on the things they've been saying.
Of course, a rising tide lifts all boats, so I'm sure the XBox 360 will benefit. But the 360 is not the vanguard, IMHO.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
She also played a few games on the NES, and has been making serious use of a GameBoy for years (Tetris, as it turns out, is still a killer app). I think I need a better point of comparison with the mainstream.
Possibly one that isn't directly related to me.
Canthros
My mom and my dad used to play with our Intellivision (a console by Mattel) way back in the Atari days. Mostly simple arcade games like Burgertime. Neither paid much attention to the C=64 which replaced the Intellivision, nor to the NES that replaced the C=64, though by that time they played a couple of games (mostly Tetris) on the Mac.
By the time my brother and I became less interested in our Gameboy, my mom got hooked. Tetris and Shangai being the first victims of cartridge burnout, followed by Dr. Mario. She also played a bit of Puzzle Bobble in the Mac... but never took any interest whatsoever in the SNES, N64 or Playstation 1 we had at home.
When my brother bought an X-BOX, someone made the mistake of showing my mom how to load the Tetris DVD that camed bundled with the console, so she was back again at her game, despite the complex controller (compared to the gameboy).
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
My wife (a mom) is relatively addicted to many things on the arcade. Lately she's been soaking up some hours with Zuma. Great game with fun sound and addictive qualities. I'm at the point where we may just need to buy a second one so I can waste away on Oblivion. When I showed her that Galaga was on the arcade I knew I was in trouble. The $60 new games? Absolutely no interest but the arcade is a perfect fit for her.
I dunno about your mum, but I guess it'd vary on what they'd do with their circle of friends. I don't expect "EA SPORTS TUPPERWARE PARTY 2007" or "KNITTING CIRCLE2K7" but I think it's a great way to be able to stay in touch with friends, chat, catch up over a reasonably interesting game or two they might be all able to play.
Gin Rummy, Bridge, Hearts, 500 etc. over Live! with a bunch of friends while they played cards and talked about how their son had run off to Canada to work on a ski resort and how he was turning out to be such a hopeless bum.
The potential is huge in Asian markets. Imagine setting your mum up for Mahjong or Go-Stop so she can get off your case about finding a decent job and putting down a downpayment on a house.
One can only dream.
That is totally bodacious! Using Bill and Ted quotes on /. is just excelent! It should be a new meme with some rocking out!
(ps...finding the correct spelling of 'bodacious' is one of the more complicated web search quests I've been on for awhile.)
I ate your fish.
That article was great.
Alex: Final question, what are we having for dinner?
Mrs. P: Are you kidding? After all that, you expect me to make dinner, too?
Alex: Touché.
That was the most obvious, but it was all pretty funny - almost satire, even better because it *wasn't* actually satire.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
The Xbox at least did have its share of ported PC adventure games, of course no mom would use a 12 button, 2 sticks, 1 dpad controller for a game that works with a mouse, works on a computer without having to fight with the husband over the TV and costs less on the PC.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
My Mom loves Rainbow Islands, and all those classic arcade games of that ilk.
:(
:)
y er.php?game=tapper
Of course Taito collection is already on the XBox so it was mom friendly when it came out. Does it still work under the emulation?
I only wish they would have provided a real Bug joystick, and let Bub and Bob jump using pushing up of the joystick, rather than pressing a button. You can't fire rainbows and jump so easily with two buttons on one hand
She loves the ORIGINAL Mario (or the Mario Allstars version. As long as it's the Super Mario Bros. or Lost Levels versions, or Mario 3. Anything else she won't play). Once XBox 360 gets those, it'll be on a win. ROTFLMAO. I guess Wii wins there.
Anyone thinking of porting Tapper to a next-gen console?
http://www.midway.com/classicGames/classicGamePla
Sorry to disappoint, but the learning curve for today's generation of games, especially if you hadn't been keeping up with the gradual build-up (each generation having more action buttons than the last), is too much for your typical mom. They're more likely to throw the controller down in frustration because they can't grasp how to use it. I know many smart older people who said they tried playing an Xbox, only to give up because of all the buttons.
That's where the Wii will come in. Hardly any buttons to worry about there. I wager you'll see moms slashing and swiping at television screens with the wii-mote more than you'll see them playing a sports game on either the 360 or PS3.
I'm not saying that all moms won't be able to play the 360, but the majority of them have no love for gaming, or any interest to start gaming. If anything changes that, it'll be the Wii, not the 360.
The article tried to verify if the console was "mom" friendly, as stated by MS.
I think the conclusion might be that MS was right (even if it wasn't obviously stated in the article):
The 360 IS mom friendly.
She wouldn't buy a 360 by herself, but she would play it if it was in the house.
The MS comment was that "your mom will play it". Well looks like they were right. That mom would play it if it was in the house.
The article itself has some methodology problems though,
It started correctly, with her having to install and plug the 360, then having to configure her user id.
Then it degenerates in a bunch of "reviews" of games she was handed to play.
The more correct approach would maybe have been to present her with a bunch of XBLA titles and a numerous amount of games and letting HER decide what to play. Don't force her to play the games YOU want HER to play.
The results might have been more significant.
I think you're partly wrong and off-base in your arguments.
A mom would prefer a 12 button, 2 sticks, 1 dpad controller for a game BEFORE she would use a mouse / keyboard combo.
Most games on PC uses esoteric or complicated button configurations on the keyboard. The mouse / keyboard combo takes a longer time to get used to than anything that can be put on a modern controller.
If you're strictly talking about point and click adventure games, then yes. The PC versions might be better and more intuitive. Would a mom prefer that over console? Far from sure... I know a bunch of people who can't even get Myst to run on their PC because of hardware problems and complicated install procedures (yes having to press "next" a couple of times and a radio button to "agree to the license" can be messed-up by anyone that doesn't know computers. I know this first hand.).
The difference in controls difficulty for those kind of games (on consoles or PC) is minimal at best.
As for the title "360 selling worse than the xbox", that's biased and purposefully ignoring correct statistics to prove the opposite.
By that logic, i can also prove that DVD players were selling worse than VHS players when the DVDs first came out.
360 sale numbers will need to be compared with Wii and PS3 sales numbers, once they come out. Any other statistics is useless.
Another example is saying:
"PS2 is selling more than 360".
Trying to prove that the 360 is not good.
Well a 100$ PS2 with games available that are sold for less than 10$ is outselling a newer 360 at 400$ with games that are sold for 40$. It's obvious that the PS2 sells more just for the price only.
As i said, you need to compare consoles of a similar generation for sale numbers to mean anything.
Mothers are in their 30s to 40s on average which menas they may had exposure to atari2600 , pong and the like. They are also much more computer savy than in previous decades. I think it's not far fetched at all for a mother to play the xbox360. My sister-in-law plays the pool gae from xbox live arcade with her son and I just purchased and loaded Uno. I'm trying to convince her to give it a try since I can playwith her some night. She doesnt play the usual x360 gaes since the motion gives her a headache. I know regular gamers that cant play first person shooters due to the otion sickness. So, my point is she gets ill playing ost xbox titles but found something that she can enjoy with her kids. Most Moms want to be involved with the games that their kids play. Our only problem is to convince my nephew to turn off the xbox every once in awhile. I love card and board games but if he doesnt see a plug or battery compartment, he is not interested.
I think that "The 360 is selling worse than the XBox!" bit was just the OMG-Dreamcast-360-all-hail-Sony troll we get regularly.
The difference in control difficulty is minimal to you but to a person who has never used a controller having to remember which mouse button clicks is much easier than remembering which console button does the same. Mostly because there's four face buttons on a controller and two on a mouse. One if you're using a Mac. Never mind that pointing is much more natural with a mouse than driving the cursor with a stick.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Mom's favorite games are Zuma and Hexic. Dad enjoys Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.
Ted: Now you're dad's going for it. In your own room. Bill: Shut up Ted. Ted: Your step-mom is cute though. Bill: Shut up Ted. Ted: Remember when I asked her to the prom? Bill: SHUT UP TED!!
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
...and to think you nailed bodacious but tripped up on excellent!